For many years considerable attention has been directed to the provision of seam forming elements at the respective ends of a papermakers' fabric whereby said ends might be securely and uniformly joined in such manner that the permeability in the seam region is not materially different from that of the body of the fabric.
Originally seaming was effected by sewing or otherwise securing a tape carrying laterally extending loops to each of the respective fabric ends, the loops at the respective ends being interdigitated and a pintle wire being introduced into the tunnel formed by the interdigitated loops to hold the ends together.
Another known procedure, see for example GB-A-1348098, involved the introduction of the individual turns of a helical coil between adjacent warp yarns in a weft-free zone of a single layer woven fabric in closely spaced disposition relative to the fabric end and the folding of the free fabric end about such turns thus to make captive the coil relative to the fabric, the free fabric end being sewn or otherwise secured to the body of the fabric.
Another well practised procedure is to "weave back" free warp ends into the body of the fabric and in so doing form loops from the individual warp yarns, the loop-forming warp yarns each being folded back into alignment with an adjacent cut-back warp yarn.